A colourful Humanist garden ceremony with a symbolic sand ritual

If you’re having a dreary day, this wedding will brighten it up and if your day is already bright then this wedding will have it feeling even brighter. It’s one of those weddings, you see!

Set in lush grounds of a centuries old, family-owned house in Marbella, Spain, Anastasija and Simon knew they wanted to have as much colour on their wedding day as possible to complement the stunning greens of the venue. And they certainly did!

And as you will see, as much as their wedding is an enormous, mouth-watering feast for the eyes, it is also is one that is very nourishing for the soul too. Full of love, heart and emotion. All the best combos!

So let’s jump into Simon and Anastasija’s multi-coloured, multi-national love fest (Simon’s British, Anastasija is Russian, they met in London and now live in Singapore and they had guests flying in from all over the world), with awesome photos by the super talented Pedro Bellido.

Pre-ceremony

♥ Laid back bridal preparations ♥ Chill time with the wedding party ♥Eye-popping wedding venue ♥ All the colours of the rainbow!♥ A cool Camper van entrance ♥

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The ceremony

We wanted to be surrounded by our nearest and dearest, our close friends and family, for an intimate atmosphere and stress-free day. We wanted the wedding to be a celebration of our relationship in a non-traditional and special way to enable the day to represent our values and outlook on life.

Our humanist ceremony took place in the beautiful garden of Finca La Concepcion in the late afternoon sunshine. Our entrance music (The XX – Angels) and exit music (Wild Beasts – Palace) was personalised to demonstrate our feelings towards each other and our reading (an extract from Captain Correlli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres) was read out by our close friends – once in Russian and once in English, to ensure the everyone understood the content. We chose the sand ceremony as a symbol that our lives will be forever intertwined (although we forgot to take the sand with us at the end of the night! D’oh!)

– Simon and Anastasija

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Personal touches

♥ The bride’s entrance with her dad ♥ A reading read in both Russian and English ♥ A symbolic sand ritual using sand from a nearby Marbella beach ♥ Simon’s dad and Anastasija’s mum were the ring bearers ♥ Heartfelt awesome personal vows ♥ Lots of loving vibes from all present ♥

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Their personal vows

Anastasija/Simon do you now choose Simon/Anastasija to be your wife/husband, to share your life openly with him/her, to speak truthfully and lovingly to him/her, to accept him/her as he or she is and delight in who he or she is becoming, to respect his or her uniqueness, encourage his or her fulfilment, and compassionately support him/her through all the changes of your years together?

Followed by personal vows…

Simon’s – Anastasija, today I take you as you are,
The woman who I have loved, I still love and I will always love.
And now you give me the honour of being able to call you my wife.
For that honour, I promise, to be there for you at all times
To love you, to support and protect you, and to bring happiness into your life.
And I promise that no matter what challenges lie ahead, we will embrace and surmount them together.

Anastasija’s – I love you. You are my best friend.
Today I choose to make a deeper commitment to you.
It is my way of telling you that our experiences together have been so good that I want them to continue.
I promise to encourage and inspire you
To laugh with you and comfort you in times of sorrow and struggle.
I promise to love you faithfully when life seems easy and when it seems hard,
When our love is simple and when it is an effort.
I will strive to bring out the best in you and help you to achieve your dreams.
You are everything I ever hoped to find in a partner and I will love growing old with you.
I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

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Looking back, we are 100% happy that the ceremony went just as we had hoped it would and when we think back, we only have positive emotions towards it. The only downside was that it went so quickly; the same was also true of the wedding day on the whole!

-Anastasija and Simon

What an absolutely beautiful couple and beautiful wedding from the inside out!

Natasha Johnson

Natasha Johnson is an experienced Wedding Celebrant, blogger and writer on all things related to weddings, in particular wedding ceremonies. Her mission is life is to encourage couples to see the importance of their wedding ceremony and to get married in just the way they want to. Make sure you catch her on the Engaged and Ready Wedding Podcast, here or on iTunes and Stitcher.

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